Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of emergency response driver training standards across in the (a) police, (b) fire and (c) ambulance services.

Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office supports police objectives to keep the public safe and ensure that officers can provide an emergency response, rapidly and effectively, to attend incidents. Police investment in technology for vehicle safety, along with guidance issued by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing on response driving, help forces to achieve rapid responses and ensure public safety.

Police drivers must undergo comprehensive training at several levels throughout their career and they have a duty to ensure that their standard of driving is consistent with their training.

The development and maintenance of police driver training standards, along with driving-related curricula, are led by the College of Policing, with support from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, both of whom have expertise in this area of police operations.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government is taking to help ensure public safety in relation to emergency response driving.

Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office supports police objectives to keep the public safe and ensure that officers can provide an emergency response, rapidly and effectively, to attend incidents. Police investment in technology for vehicle safety, along with guidance issued by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing on response driving, help forces to achieve rapid responses and ensure public safety.

Police drivers must undergo comprehensive training at several levels throughout their career and they have a duty to ensure that their standard of driving is consistent with their training.

The development and maintenance of police driver training standards, along with driving-related curricula, are led by the College of Policing, with support from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, both of whom have expertise in this area of police operations.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how her Department monitors the impact of budget pressures on SEND outcomes.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

The department’s assessment of the impact of pressures on the outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is available in our consultation document ‘SEND Reform: putting children and young people first’, published 23 February.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what criteria will be used to evaluate the success of the Government’s SEND reforms.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

Every child deserves an education that meets their needs, one that is academically stretching, where every child feels like they belong, and that sets them up for life and work.

Driving inclusion in schools will improve outcomes for all children. Our reforms will restore parents’ trust in the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system. We will be investing £4 billion more over three years to support implementation, including £1.8 billion so every community has experts on hand, with £1.6 billion going directly to schools for early intervention and over £200 million to train every teacher.

The department regularly publishes statistics on pupils with special educational needs, including information on educational attainment, destinations, absence, exclusions and characteristics.

We are consulting on proposals to reform the SEND system, and will set out in more detail how we will evaluate policy after the consultation closes. We will set clear expectations of our public services and hold them to account for delivering.